I have been feeling for about 10 days as though an overweight, dust-covered shi-tzu has taken up residence in my sinus cavity, so this morning I finally summoned the intelligence to make an appointment with my doctor. Based on past experience, I figured my malady was a pretty cut-and-tried sinus infection – shouldn’t take but two minutes for the doctor to look into my ears, write me an illegible prescription for a Z-Pack and send me on my way.

I arrived at the doctor’s office 15 minutes early. After reading two issues of Entertainment Weekly, my gaunt, balding, children’s-charity-tie-wearing doctor burst through the door and into examination room two.

“How’s it going, Daniel?” he asked. I was under no impression that he actually knew my name. He saw it in my chart.

“I’m OK. How are you doing?”

“Better than you from what I can tell,” he said.

I said nothing. I just waited for him to start pushing down on my sinuses and perhaps dangle a rawhide chew toy up my nose to lure out the offending shi-tzu. But before he could begin, you know, doctoring, he looked up at me and gave me a once-over – the kind you might expect if you walked into a Mercedes-Benz dealer wearing nothing but a winning smile and a cock ring.

“Wow,” he said. “That is a really nice shirt.”

(What? What the fuck did he just say to me?)

“Thanks,” I said. “Eddie Bauer.”

“Eddie Bauer, huh?” he said. “Wow. I mean that is a really, really nice shirt.”

And with that my doctor walked over and began to feel my clothing – WHILE I WAS WEARING IT! He ran his index finger across the seam stitching on my shoulder. He grabbed a piece of the fabric on my sleeve between his thumb and forefinger and rolled it back and forth like a thumb-sucking kid copping a touch-buzz from the ear of his teddy bear as he falls asleep. He ran the back of his hand along the wooden buttons.

(If he kisses me, I am so fucking out of here.)

At this point, I was completely freaked out. But the little four-year-old inside of me thought if I didn’t sit still I would have to get a shot and I really didn’t want a shot. So just sat there, staring straight ahead, letting the doctor get his jollies from my starched white Eddie Bauer button-down shirt, which I will never wear again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shirt quite like this one,” he said with kind of a glassed-over look on his face, the same look you see on the face of a porn star just after the money shot. “It’s so strong and firm. Very well-constructed, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Strong. Firm.”

(Kind of like the bottom of the Timberland hiking boot on my right foot, which is going straight up your ass if you don’t BACK UP right now, you sick, sick freak.)

I needed to change the subject immediately or face the very genuine possibility that my doctor was going to ask me to remove my underpants so he could begin his examination of my sinuses with a closer look at my butthole. I recalled – in a moment of absolute heterosexual, woman-loving terror – that he and I are both hockey players.

“So,” I said, “have you, um, scored any goals lately?”

With that, the glaze vanished from his eyes and he was a human being again. He snapped out of his cotton-fetish-driven haze and, lo and behold, began to examine my sinuses. Never did get an answer to the hockey question, but I didn’t really need one. I just wanted to get my prescription and run like the wind.

Didn’t I ask you to remind me to find a female doctor?